09/19/2009

06/19/2009

I first encountered Jim Black a dozen years ago in Philly,
on a gig with Dave Douglas’ Tiny Bell Trio. His playing nailed me to the spot,
in a way that it hadn’t on record: he was capable of so much texture in the
midst of so much propulsion. I soon sought out more of his sideman
work -- Tim Berne had just issued an obscenely aggressive Bloodcount box, Unwound, that was in heavy rotation for over a year -- and caught dozens more gigs,
especially after I made the jump to New York. *

AlasNoAxis, Black’s improv-enabled indie-rock band,
dropped out of the sky not long after this. And it prompted me to reconsider
him yet again. Here was a rounded, yearningly forthright, deeply modern-sounding
music, nearly devoid of the craggy complexities Black was usually compelled to
tackle. “It takes confidence in this world sometimes just to bring out those
things that actually come out very quickly and honestly,” he told me in 2000,
before the band’s Philadelphia debut. “And it wasn’t until I heard the music
with the band that I was convinced I was doing the right thing.”

He should be secure in that conviction by now. AlasNoAxis
released its fifth album, Houseplant, on
June 9. (Europe got it first; I Playlisted it last month.) At the Bowery
Poetry Club last night, Black announced that the album had sold out its run,
going into a second printing. As if that weren’t encouragement enough, his show
-- presented by Adam Schatz’s organization Search and Restore -- was
legitimately packed.